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Reader Comments and Retorts

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The A's are in first place much, much earlier than last year.
I approve.

The Brewers are is last place...well...when expected.

The injuries to Ryan Braun, Aramis Ramirez, Corey Hart, Mat Gamel, and Taylor Green have left them with Alex Gonzalez hitting cleanup while playing first base. Oh, and YuniB is now the starting third baseman.

Eager fan: So how many games do you get to each year?
Howie Rose: About 81, except if I have a conflict.
Eager fan: Do you have season tickets?
Howie Rose: Sort of. Just kidding with you. I call the Mets games on the radio. I'm Howie Rose.

Widespread availability of Pitch FX really ought to influence the calling of balls and strikes. It's just absurd when you can directly observe in real time that pitches are in the strike zone but getting called balls. Verlander just walked Wells with two of the four balls being clearly in the zone and a third one being right on the edge. Why is this still allowed?

Baldrick, I felt the same way last night during the Orioles' loss to the Twins. Jim Johnson gave up a walk to Josh Willingham in which pitchFX showed all four "balls" as strikes. Turned out to be the winning run, too.

Denard Span is SUCH an impressive guy at the plate. He's been here for a week, and already it's obvious that he has the best strike zone judgment of any player on the Nationals. Six walks and zero strikeouts so far...that's quite the lovely ratio right there.

Neither Strasberg nor Cueto particularly sharp this afternoon. But Joey Votto just had a hellaciously good PA only to chase a pitch juuuuuust a bit outside to strike out meekly. No further damage, 3-3 after 2 at the Great American Bandbox.

Terrible play all around there. Hudson strikes out Schierholz on a check swing with a breaking ball in the dirt, and Gattis totally whiffs on it, letting it roll to the backstop. Schierholtz stands at the plate, hoping the umpire will rule it wasn't a swing (it obviously was). By the time he starts running, Gattis has time to go retrieve the ball and throw out Schierholtz.

I just switched from DirecTV to FIOS, and have been getting the free trial of Extra Innings. I was pretty surprised to miss the start of a West Coast game because an Eastern game ran over on the same channel. Is that something that happens regularly with FIOS? Streaming mlb.tv my TV has some buffering quirks, but at least they show full games.

This IBB was both a fascinating strategy call and not at all obvious, and super fun to watch. Thanks NL baseball for having pitchers bat! And now I can watch Cueto feebly K against Strasburg! This is so much fun and so key to my watching experience that I'd definitely quit watching if the NL cut it out for the DH.

I'm starting to see all the problems with Evan Gattis's defense. He's missed one blockable pitch in the dirt, and might have cost Tim Hudson a strike on the first pitch to Alberto Gonzalez by dropping a pitch that really looked like it was in the strike zone. Doesn't look real fluid out there.

I was pretty surprised to miss the start of a West Coast game because an Eastern game ran over on the same channel. Is that something that happens regularly with FIOS?

That must be how they distribute Extra Innings because that happened occasionally on DirecTV's version of it. They only have so many channels allotted and they sometimes schedule them rather stupidly such that a channel sits idle while another pre-empts a west coast game while an east coast games runs into extra innings. I don't know if the guy running the scheduling department is drunk or they just don't give a crap.

The one sad thing about the pitch count era is that even a start like that isn't really a shot at something crazy like a 20 K game, because he'd be pulled even if he was on pace with how many pitches that takes.

The Rockies traded Ramon Hernandez ($3.2M) to the Dodgers for Aaron Harang ($7M + $2M buyout). Supposedly the Dodgers are sending $4.25M. The Rockies then turned around and DFA'd Harang. If the Rockies can't find a taker for Harang and release him, this leaves them on the hook for more than they were for Hernandez if the info at Cots is correct.

Hmm, Harang was far less hurt and far less sucky last year than I thought. So I guess the Rockies should be able to trade him. He is a flyball pitcher, but I wonder why they don't give him a shot. It's not as if they're awash in good starters.

He is a flyball pitcher, but I wonder why they don't give him a shot. It's not as if they're awash in good starters.

I have to disagree. The Rockies are kind of awash in starting pitcher prospects, and I'd rather see them give Drew Pomeranz or Christian Friedrich another chance as opposed to bringing in a mediocre veteran. It's not as if they're one 10-10, 4.25 starter away from the playoffs.

Harang would seem to have more value to the Dodgers than to the Rockies. I don't understand why they want to get rid of him for nothing.

A´s Anderson tried to grab a hard grounder up the middle with his bare hand, slightly injured. Isn´t it normal, automatic to go for it, if it´s the only way to get the ball ?
I can´t remember ever being told not to try to grab it by a coach etc..
Like sliding into first base, this seems to me to be just an instinctive action.
Or are professionals told not to do stuff like that and do it anyway even after being told ?
Even fined for it ?